Stratford Pilsner

Aroma: 7 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 6 | Flavor: 7 | Overall: 7

Well the much awaited appearence of this beer in bottles for home consumption has been, to say the least, not anti-climactic...then I see the white box at the LCBP...I suppose the bland understated packaging was a tease and certainly not indicative of product inside that package. Poured a decent pale gold with a respectable frothy sticky cap with good retention and lacing. Moderate carbonation. Clear and brite appearence. Aroma gives light floral tones from fresh saaz hops and the signature German carapils biscuit smells...promising Moderate malt spine, silky mouthfeel...sweet biscuit malts up front turn dry with the sharp saaz hopping, middle gives bready-lemony impressions... finish is clean and drying with a big whack of cedar hops overpowering the malts...tinny after taste...great finish...decent micro pils. Has a chracter similar to Budvar or Staropramen with better hopping and malts...a good dry pilsner in the Czech style.

Aroma: 4 | Appearance: 10 | Mouthfeel: 5 | Flavor: 5 | Overall: 5

Okay now that Stratford is bottling it's fine pilsner, you kno0w what that means. Yup, re-review time. Cause now I have proper glassware and I can sample out of the bottle. Well, so far it's better out of the bottle than out of pilsner style glass # 1. Actually, out of glass #1 it's kind of disgusting. Takes on a kind of sweetness to it. Do not use this style glass(Stella Artois glass). What it does have is a great grassy aroma and a crisp mouthfeel, just the way a pilsner should be, esp. out of the bottle. on to glass # 2, which is the standard pilsner glass. Better head, but not much better, and it still tastes lkke shit this way. Yup, this beer is definitely better straight out of the bottle, makin' her a sessioner. The ratings, other than appearance, reflect the bottle sampling. Okay so now it's the day after and they've sat in fridge for awhile and have taken on a brown sugar kind of sweetness to them. Not overpoweringly though. Like a dummed down Red Stripe.